


Welcome to Camp Twin Pines

by Mabel_Quartz



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Camp Cipher au, Gen, Mentions of trans Dipper Pines, These kids got a big storm comin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-16
Updated: 2016-09-16
Packaged: 2018-08-15 07:39:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8048005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mabel_Quartz/pseuds/Mabel_Quartz
Summary: Now that Dipper and Mabel are old enough, Mr. and Mrs. Pines think it's a great idea to send them to their Great Uncle's summer camp up in Gravity Falls! It'll be good for them; it is just a regular old summer camp, right? 
A little paranormal adventure never hurt anyone. 
This au idea is from sailorleo's Camp Cipher on Tumblr (though I have deviated from a couple details). Check her out!





	Welcome to Camp Twin Pines

School hadn’t even been let out for a full week, and already this summer wasn’t going how Dipper had planned.  
He clutched onto his duffel with one hand and kept his hat on his head with the other as the bus hit another huge bump. His twin sister, who was sitting next to him, let out a squeal of joy as she flew a foot off the seat, coming back down with an “oof!” She giggled and pulled at the strands of her hair that had become tangled in her braces while she was airborne. Dipper groaned and rubbed at his sore backside.  
“Ugh, only you would find possible concussions fun, Mabel…”  
Mabel rolled her eyes playfully and blew her brother a raspberry. As soon as her tongue was back in her mouth, she leaned past him to look out at the quickly passing scenery. Dipper let out another pained noise as Mabel crawled over him to put her elbows on the window. “How close do you think we are to camp?”  
Dipper felt a familiar twinge in his gut at the word “camp”, the same twinge that had been cropping up every time anyone mentioned camp to him these past few days. He cleared his throat nervously. “I-I dunno…we’ve been on the road for a while, so we can’t be far…”  
Mabel grinned and squished her cheeks with her hands, still looking out the window. “It’s gonna be so fun!! We’re gonna have the best first year at summer camp ever!! We can make arts and crafts and go swimming in an actual lake and I can’t wait to meet my cabin buddies or your cabin buddies and we can sing campfire songs and—“  
Dipper slumped farther in his seat and tuned his sister out without fully meaning to. Honestly, he’d be a little more excited for this new experience if his parents hadn’t thrust it upon them. Or if new experiences didn’t stress him out so much. It really just wasn’t fair for their parents to spring the news on them on the last day of school: “Hey, you know your great-uncle who lives in another state who you haven’t seen since before you could form full sentences? Well, he runs a summer camp that you two are old enough for this year, and we’re sending you there for two and a half months! Here’s your luggage, off you go!” Okay, so it hadn’t been worded exactly like that, but that had been what it sounded like.  
And so there they were, just a day after their parents’ surprise, on a hot, rickety bus on their way to the middle of nowhere, one much happier about the change of plans than the other.  
Mabel, the much happier twin, was currently digging the toe of one sneaker-clad foot into one of Dipper’s skinny legs and continuing to ramble on about her plans for the summer. “—and it’s a good thing you packed aloe vera, because you know I’m gonna hit the pool and get burned, and I brought paper and scented markers so me and my cabin buddies can mark whose bunks are whose, and—“  
Dipper sighed. It was going to be a long rest of the bus ride. 

 

Not only had the bus not been air conditioned.  
Not only was it nearly a hundred degrees outside.  
Not only were Dipper and Mabel already sitting in a pool of their own sweat by the time the bus pulled up.  
But the camp was half a mile from the bus stop. And they had to walk.  
The sun beat down on the both of them as they trudged up the trail to the camp grounds, dragging their luggage behind them. Mabel was still talking.  
“Do you think they’ll have any special camp songs? I really hope so. Do you think they’ll have campfires? I really hope so. Do you think—“  
As it had on the bus, Mabel’s voice slowly dulled into a hum of background noise in Dipper’s brain. He was too busy focusing on the army of trees on either side of him. Sunlight kept the forest bed somewhat illuminated, and beams of light peeked through the canopy above, like stage lights.  
But despite how pretty it was, there was still something so sinister about the forest, so mysterious. It looked like the kind of place someone could walk into and never walk out of, to get lost forever in. And Dipper just couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being watched. It poked and prodded at his anxiety, trying to arouse his fight or flight instinct. It made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, and his eyes dart back and forth, back and forth, back and—  
“Dipper, look!” Mabel snapped Dipper out of his unease and pointed up ahead to a huge log cabin at the end of the trail, big enough to be a house. The building read “Headquarters” in big letters, and had a pointed roof high enough to block out the sun. The twins began to walk faster, their destination in sight. Dipper hesitated a little when he saw the camp’s welcome sign.  
It was wooden, and staked into the ground next to the trail. Painted in blue were the words “Welcome to Camp Twin Pines”. “Twin Pines”, however, had a slash of red paint over it. Underneath the slashed out words, “Cipher” was painted in red, next to what looked like the illuminati symbol.  
Mabel just kept trekking on. Dipper followed hesitantly, but not before casting one final, nervous glance into the forest behind them.

 

A blast of sweet, sweet air conditioning hit them as they walked into Headquarters. Instantly, they didn’t have much room to move. The place was packed with campers bustling about, trying to find out which cabin they were in. Adults in blue and white t-shirts were frantically trying to keep things organized, to no avail. At the front of the room, leaning against a raised platform not quite big enough to be a proper stage, was a man with tousled gray hair. He was flipping through a stack of papers, and his shirt said “Chief”. Dipper and Mabel really only knew him from a few pictures in their family’s photo album at home. Excitedly, Mabel bounded up to him.  
“Hi! I’m Mabel! You’re my great uncle, which makes me your great niece! Niece to meet you!” Her expression was one of pure triumph; she’d been waiting to make that pun all day, and she’d executed it perfectly. Their great-uncle snapped his attention away from the papers in his hand and looked wide-eyed at the ball of energy with a ponytail. His lips curled into a half-grin that bordered on a sneer.  
“Heh. That was a good one. You think of that yourself?”  
“Yep! I’m a master of comedy!”  
The man rose to his feet and held out his hand to shake hers, but she decided to throw her arms around his middle in a hug instead.  
“I’m super happy to meet you, Great Uncle Stan! Well, I guess I have technically met you, but my mom had just birthed me so it doesn’t count.”  
Stan looked intensely uncomfortable at the foreign object (Mabel) latched onto him, awkwardly patting her back with one hand before gently prying her off.  
“I-I’m happy too, kiddo! So if you’re Mabel, then where’s…” His eyes locked onto Dipper, standing awkwardly behind his sister and scratching a mosquito bite on his right leg with the toe of his left shoe. “Ah! You must be…uh…”  
“Dipper.”  
“Dipper! Nice to meet ya, kid.” He held out his hand for Dipper to shake.  
Dipper gave a small smile and took his uncle’s hand. Instantly, he regretted it. A buzzing sound went off, and Dipper yelped in shock and yanked his hand away as what felt like an electric current zapped through his arm. Stan burst out laughing, loudly, and slapped his knee. He held up his right hand, the hand he’d used to shake Dipper’s, and revealed the joy buzzer in his palm.  
“Ahahahaha!!! I’ve been waitin’ all morning to do that! Mabel here avoided it with the hug, but man, you sure didn’t! Ah, you should see your face!”  
Dipper rubbed at his hand and looked betrayed. In all honesty, it didn’t hurt anymore, but he still felt the need to rub at it. Mabel laughed along with Stan.  
“Great Uncle Stan, that was hilarious! A joy buzzer, what a classic!”  
“Thanks, kid, I know. But hey, ‘Great Uncle’ takes too long to say. Time is money, y’know. How about you kids call me ‘Grunkle Stan’?”  
“Grunkle?” Dipper asked.  
“Ooh, it sounds like an adorable goat creature that lives in the forest and lets you pet it in exchange for magical items! I like it!” Mabel exclaimed.  
“Yeah, okay, whatever floats your boat.” Realization suddenly dawned on Stan’s face. “Hey, you two know what cabins you’ll be in?”  
The twins shook their heads in unison.  
“Okay, what you wanna do is go to Lazy Susan at that table over there. She’s the lady with too much blue eye shadow.”  
Mabel looked as if she resented that statement. Stan didn’t notice.  
“She’ll tell you little gremlins where you need to go.”  
“Thanks, Grunkle Stan. We’ll see you later!” Mabel waved happily at him, his comment about the eye shadow forgiven, and bounded away as happily as she’d approached him. Dipper followed after her, giving his uncle a wave as well.  
“Later, G-Grunkle Stan.” His brain and mouth had nearly rejected the term ‘grunkle’.  
Once at Lazy Susan’s table, she informed them that they would be staying in cabins 3A and 5B. She handed them each a name tag, and gave them both a big smile.  
“Now you two go unpack! You don’t wanna be late to the welcome meeting!”  
“Yes, ma’am!” Mabel chirped, and taking Dipper’s hand, walked back out into the heat.  
“It sucks that we can’t be in the same cabin…” Dipper mumbled sadly.  
“Yeah…but we already knew that wasn’t gonna happen, bro-bro. We can still hang out during the day! And hey, who’s to say we can’t sneak over to each other’s cabins here and there, huh?”  
Dipper brightened up at this. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” They’d walked to the front of the mess hall at this point, the building right smack between the boys’ cabin area and the girls’ cabin area. “See you at the welcome meeting?”  
“You know it, Dippingsauce!” With that, Mabel skipped away, luggage in tow. Encouraged by his sister’s words, Dipper wrapped his fingers around his suitcase handle and walked purposefully off in the opposite direction, towards whatever his cabin held. 

 

Mabel threw the door to her cabin open and confidently strode in. Two cabin mates were already in there, unpacking and giggling.  
“Hi, cabin sisters! I’m Mabel!” She gasped when she saw a lizard on the arm of the larger girl. “You have an animal on your body!”  
“Yeah, we found this little guy on the cabin’s porch! I’m Grenda, by the way.”  
“Nice to meet you!”  
“Candy Chiu, sixth grade!” Squeaked out a third voice.  
Mabel looked up to the top bunk to see the speaker, a much smaller girl with glasses and long, sleek black hair. Mabel grinned.  
“Nice to meet you, too! Have you named the lizard yet?”  
“I decided to name her Grenda 2, the Sequel!”  
“That’s a beautiful name!” Mabel looked around the cabin for the first time. It was small, but in a cozy way. She was electing to ignore the spider webs. There were four bunk beds, all with off-white mattresses. There were two doors in the cabin, besides the entrance/exit, one of them labeled ‘Bathroom’ and the other labeled ‘Counselor’. “So what bunk should I take?”  
“Well, I am sleeping up here, and Grenda is sleeping in the bunk beneath me. You can have either of the other two!”  
“Yeah! Whichever one you don’t use, we can put our stuff on!”  
“What?” Mabel cocked her head like a confused puppy. “What about the fourth girl?”  
“Oh, there was an odd number of girls at camp this year, so two cabins only have three girls. We’re one of those cabins!”  
“Oh…well, I guess we’ll have to make up for it with EXTRA PARTYING!”  
Candy and Grenda both grinned.  
“I like the way you think, girl!” Grenda pulled Mabel in for a hug, and Mabel giggled and hugged back. Candy slid down from her bunk, oddly snake-like, and joined them.  
“We still have thirty minutes until the welcome meeting…what should we do?”  
“Weeeell…I brought arts and crafts supplies!”  
Candy and Grenda squealed in unison.  
“I’ve found my people…” Mabel whispered.

 

Hell was real. And Dipper was in it.  
First off, it was a really bad sign when the first thing you smell upon entering your cabin is a noxious blend of hairspray and Axe.  
He coughed, waved away the fumes, and looked around the cabin. It had four wooden bunks with discolored mattresses that Dipper strongly suspected had started out white, and he was very glad that he brought a sleeping bag with him.  
A blond boy with a ponytail stood by one of the bottom bunks unpacking his things. It seemed as if most of what he was taking out of his bag was arts and crafts supplies, and—were those sock puppets? This guy seemed like the kind of person Mabel would like. Dipper’s train of thought was interrupted by someone clearing their throat. The ponytailed boy was looking at him with an eyebrow raised.  
“Admiring my work, huh?”  
“What?”  
“My puppets. Feel free to look at them, just don’t touch them. They’re my pride and joy…”  
“Oh, uh, they’re…they’re really cool, man!” They were so creepy, oh God.  
“Name’s Gabe Benson, puppet master. You can call me Gabe.” Gabe held a hand out to Dipper, and Dipper shook it.  
“I’m Dipper Pines.”  
“’Dipper’?”  
“Well, yeah, it’s…yeah. Dipper.”  
“Hm.” Gabe gave Dipper a somewhat pitying look that made Dipper want to sock him all of a sudden. (Heh. Sock.) “You can have the bunk above me if you want. Wait, you don’t toss and turn, do you?”  
“A little, I guess.”  
“In that case…you can have one of the other bunks.”  
Dipper gave him a somewhat irked look but nodded. Hoisting one of his bags over his head, he chucked it into the other top bunk. He was happy that he was one of the first ones in the cabin, so he wouldn’t get stuck with a crummy bunk. Well…all of the bunks looked pretty crummy, but it was nice to have the illusion of choice.  
The cabin entrance creaked open.  
The shadow that was thrown across the floor suggested an owner of over six feet. Dipper and Gabe shrank away from the door and closer to each other. Was this their counselor? A member of the camp staff?  
In walked a young boy not much taller than four feet.  
“Good afternoon, Camp Twin Pines! How are y’all doin’ today?”  
Dipper and Gabe exchanged a glance before stepping away from each other.  
“I’m—I’m good, dude. What’s your name?” Dipper asked, resisting the urge to kneel down to get eye level with him; that seemed kind of super rude.  
“My name is Gideon Gleeful. What’re y’all’s?”  
“I’m Dip—“  
“Gabe Benson, puppet master.” Gabe said proudly as he stepped in front of Dipper.  
“Puppet master, huh? I can respect that. I too enjoy pullin’ people’s strings.”  
Dipper looked concerned, and Gabe laughed uncomfortably. Gideon looked up at them darkly for a moment, before bursting out into somewhat hysterical laughter.  
“I’m jokin’, I’m jokin’! Just havin’ a little fun. You boys like havin’ fun, right?”  
“Uh…yeah…” Dipper began to climb up to his bunk, trying not to look like he was getting away from Gideon.  
Gideon had a certain…stage presence about him. Not only did he have a mountain of white hair piled on top of his head, but the air around him seemed to glitter. A velvet covered suitcase sat next to him, which he began dragging over to Gabe’s bunk.  
“I’m gonna take the bunk above yours.”  
“Wait, wait, do you toss and turn at all? If so—“  
“If so, I’m still takin’ that bunk. That’s the bunk I want.”  
“Well, I have a problem if—“  
“Oh no, you wanna have a problem?” Gideon sounded incredibly genuinely concerned, but there was something glinting in his eyes. Gabe opened his mouth to speak again, but closed it.  
“No…I don’t.”  
“Well, that’s a good thing, hon.”  
Dipper raised his eyebrows as he watched his tiny cabin mate intimidate Gabe from the safety of his bunk.  
The cabin door creaked open again.  
In stumbled a hoodie-clad boy with no luggage on him. He ran into one of the bunks, before falling flat on his back. Gideon and Gabe were too busy discussing velvet luggage to notice. Dipper peeked over the edge of his bunk at him.  
“You alright, man?”  
“Uh…I’m fine.”  
“What…what’s your name?”  
“Normal…man!”  
Dipper sighed.  
This was gonna be a long summer. 

 

The camp bell chimed out loudly again and again as the campers flocked back to Headquarters. Mabel walked with Candy and Grenda, chatting as if the three had known each other their whole lives. Already, the three sported matching friendship bracelets.  
Through the thick of the crowd, Mabel spotted a familiar green cap.  
“DIPPER! HEY, DIPPER!” She darted between campers until she could get a hold of her brother’s hand. Dipper jumped in surprise.  
“Mabel, there you are!”  
“Dipper, come meet my girlfriends!!”  
“Your what?”  
“C’mon!!” Mabel yanked him back through the crowd to Candy and Grenda. Dipper could barely hear introductions over the chatter of the other campers.  
They all sat together, near the platform, with their legs crossed like they were back in kindergarten. It didn’t take long for the meeting to start.  
Stan walked onto the stage and looked out across the small sea of children sitting before him. He grinned in a very infomercial actor way.  
“Welcome to Camp Twin Pines, anklebiters!” There was a moment of silence. His face fell slightly. “You’re supposed to clap.”  
A spattering of applause answered hesitantly.  
“Yeah, okay, good enough.” He sighed. “Okay, this is the part of camp where I gotta be a buzzkill. You kids are now in my domain, so you gotta play by my rules. First off: Let’s say that the boy’s cabins are blue, and the girl’s cabins are pink. We ain’t gonna make purple at this camp.”  
There were some snickers among the campers, and one chubby young man standing up front with the rest of the camp staff let out a loud laugh, looking scandalized. Stan shot him a curious look. “Soos, you’ve heard that analogy about a thousand times now.”  
“I know Mr. Pines, I just—it’s comedy gold. I’m sorry. Keep talking.”  
“…yeah. Anyway. I-It’s not so much that I care, it’s that parents care. And the last thing I need is parents breathing down my neck , so…just—just try to stay in your cabin area, capiche? Second: If you wanna go into the woods, especially after dark, take one of these guys with you.” He gestured to a group of teenagers standing off to the side of the campers. “These are your counselors, and they’re here to keep you from killing each other or getting yourselves killed. Go ahead, take them into the woods with you, use them as human body shields!”  
One of the counselors, a girl with purple hair, looked up from her phone to shoot Stan an indignant look. He ignored her and laughed at his own joke. If it even was a joke.  
“Thirdly, have fun! Try not to get yourselves killed doing so, ‘cause I don’t wanna get sued, but have fun! And make sure to swing by the Camp Twin Pines gift shop!”  
Mabel and Dipper looked at each other.  
‘Who brings money to summer camp?’ Dipper mouthed. Mabel shrugged.  
“Any questions? No?”  
“Actually, I have—“  
“Alright, good! Now everybody, get outta here and go do somethin’ camp-y! Dinner’s in an hour! See you there!” His face suddenly darkened. “If you survive…” And with that, he threw a smoke bomb at his feet. When the smoke cleared, he was gone. The campers were impressed, until they heard a crash behind the stage’s curtain, followed quickly by an angry ‘Hot Belgian waffles!”. The campers began to file out.  
“So…what now?” Dipper asked. Mabel, Candy, and Grenda all put on their thinking faces.  
“Hmm…ooh, wanna see our cabin, Dip? It’s super neat!”  
“But Stan said we’re not supposed to make purp—“  
“Ah, rules are made to be broken!”  
“Nothing’s made to be broken, Mabel.”  
“What about glow sticks?”  
“I…fair enough. You got me there.”  
“Darn right I do!” Mabel said triumphantly as Candy and Grenda each high-fived her.  
“Come on, party people, let’s go! Dinner’s in an hour, and I am not missing that!” Grenda exclaimed, and took off with Candy right behind her. Mabel chased after her newfound sisters, and Dipper took off his cap to fan himself with it. Running a hand through his sweat-soaked hair, he smiled. Maybe camp wouldn’t be so bad after all…

 

Camp was most definitely going to be so bad after all.  
Back home, Dipper was not…the most popular guy on the block. Or at school. Or…anywhere, really. He didn’t have the dazzling social skills his sister had, as much as he often wished he did. Making friends was not his forte.  
Which was why he really fretted over first impressions.  
Which was why doing a face plant not five minutes after walking into the mess hall was one of the worst things that could have happened.  
But happen it did, as he was walking over to where Mabel, Candy, and Grenda were sitting. The tables around him burst into laughter as he blinked his eyes dazedly. Almost instantly, a large shadow fell over him.  
“Oh dawg, are you alright? That looked bad, dude. Like, really bad.”  
Dipper looked up. Standing over him was the young man who had laughed so loudly at Stan’s rule about the cabins earlier.  
“Yeah, I’m…I’m fine, man.”  
The man helped Dipper to his feet.  
“I’m Soos. What’s your name, little dude?”  
“I’m Dipper Pines.”  
Soos’s eyes widened.  
“Oh, you’re Mr. Pines’s nephew! It’s really nice to meet you! I’m an honorary member of your family, you know.”  
Dipper raised his eyebrows.  
“Woah, really? Well, it’s nice to—“  
“Well I mean, Mr. Pines hasn’t said so, but I can tell. I can see it in his eyes.”  
“….ah. Well, uh, nice to meet you.”  
Soos smiled at him, before looking at Dipper’s shoes with a confused expression.  
“Did you know your shoelaces are tied together, dawg?”  
“What?”  
Dipper looked down at his shoes. Sure enough, the laces where knotted together. “What the heck?! Who could’ve done that without me noticing?!”  
Soos chuckled and shrugged.  
“I dunno dude, maybe it was like…an Invisible Wizard or something.”  
From the kitchen came an angry-sounding woman’s voice.  
“Soos! Where the heck are you? Come help serve dinner, you’re the cook!”  
Soos smacked his forehead.  
“Oh dude, that’s right. I totally am. See you later, Dipper!”  
Dipper watched Soos walk off to the kitchen. The people at this camp were so weird; it was kind of awesome.

 

Dinner had been eaten, campers ushered from the mess hall, and the sun was just over the tree line. All the campers were gathered in a field not too far from the mess hall, swatting at mosquitoes and waiting for someone to hurry up and tell them why they were there, and not somewhere air conditioned. Dipper bent down to scratch as a small constellation of bug bites already forming on his leg.  
A tall, lanky, freckle-faced girl with long, ginger hair stepped in front of the sea of campers.  
“What’s up, campers? I’m camp counselor Wendy, or as my wood necklace here says, ‘Ice Ice Baby’.” She held up a necklace with a large, circular piece of wood on it. Sure enough, ‘Ice Ice Baby’ was scrawled on it in Sharpie. “But you can just call me Wendy. Seriously, dudes, feel free to do that.”  
Dipper raised his eyebrows and smiled. Wendy seemed really cool! And…and pretty. But that…that was just an observation. Dipper felt a pull on his sleeve and whipped around. Mabel was standing there with a huge grin.  
“Hey, Dip!”  
“Mabel! Where have you been?”  
“Oh, just, you know…getting a boyfriend!”  
“A boy—I’m sorry, what?”  
“That cutie over there! He’s my new boo thang!”  
“First off, never say that again. Second off, which ‘cutie’?”  
“There!”  
Dipper looked to where Mabel was pointing, and groaned.  
“Ugh, the weird guy from my cabin? Well, I mean, one of the weird guys from my cabin.” This was gonna be a pain in the butt to deal with.  
“Oh shush! I think he’s charming. And his name is Norman.” Mabel turned to Wendy, who was still talking to the group. “Oh, that’s my counselor!” She waved happily. “Hey, Wendy!!”  
Wendy looked over at Mabel, smiled, and gave her a wink, accompanied by finger-guns. Dipper raised his eyebrows.  
“Wait, she’s your counselor?”  
“Yep! She’s super awesome. She had a random dance party for no reason with me and the girls earlier in the cabin!”  
“Huh. She seems really cool.”  
“And pretty!”  
“Y-yeah. And…that.”  
Up at the front of the group, Wendy clapped her hands.  
“Ok, break up into your cabins…now! Now, dudes! You know you have nothing better to do!”  
Dipper and Mabel both furrowed their brows.  
“Oh shoot, what are we doing?”  
Grenda ran up to them.  
“You two are on my team! We gotta CRUSH our enemies!”  
“C-Crush our…what? What are we doing?”  
“DODGEBALL!”  
The color drained from Dipper’s face. He’d thought the end of school had been the end of this, too.  
The campers divided into two huge groups, facing each other. To Dipper’s right was Mabel, bouncing on her toes with an eager smile on her face. To his left was a blonde girl examining her nails, looking like she’d rather be anywhere else. Between the two teams, Wendy stood in the center of the field surrounded by dodge balls.  
“When I blow my whistle, you have the freedom to tear each other apart! Whichever team has fewer fatalities wins! One…two…” She put the whistle to her lips and blew. “GO!” With that, she sprinted off the field to the rest of the counselors, and all hell broke loose on the field. It wasn’t even a full minute before someone was lying on the ground with a nosebleed, crying for their mom. Hopefully he signed the same waver Dipper and Mabel had earlier.  
Mabel, Candy, and Grenda instantly unleashed their combined fury and began throwing dodge balls left and right, giggling maniacally the whole time.  
Dipper tried his best to avoid getting hit, but a ball hit him square in the face a few minutes in.  
Mabel hit someone in the arm with the ball, grabbed it off the ground, and slam dunked it to the ground in triumph. When it bounced back up, it hit the disinterested blonde girl in the stomach. Hard.  
“OW!!” The girl cried, doubling over and clutching her stomach.  
Mabel gasped. “Omigosh, I am SO SORRY! Are you oka--?!”  
The girl held up a hand to stop her. “You. Will. Be hearing about this from my lawyer. You can be sure of that.” She spat out with a glare. Mabel withdrew with a shocked expression.  
“I…um…okay?”  
“’Okay’? That’s all you have to say? Do you know who I am?”  
“Noooo…do you know who I am? I’m Mabel!”  
“No, that’s…that’s not what I meant.”  
Dipper was standing a few feet away as the whole thing unfolded, and he shot his sister a sympathetic look. He knew Mabel knew the girl was being mean, but was just playing dumb to diffuse the situation. Like always. He considered going over to help her, but she was already running off with Candy and Grenda. He looked out over the metaphorical blood bath, and Norman caught his attention. He was hit in the face, and fell flat onto his back. Dipper reeled back. He could’ve sworn…he could’ve sworn Norman’s hand detached from his body for a split second. He squinted. There was no way, was there…?  
His train of thought was interrupted as another ball hit him in the face.  
“DUDE! I WAS ALREADY OUT!”  
He groaned and rubbed at his face. His eyes wandered to the tree line. The woods were beginning to look really inviting…somewhere without flying dodge balls and screaming twelve year olds.  
What was it Stan had said about going into the woods? He needed to take a counselor? Eh, Stan didn’t have to know.  
He looked around to make sure no one was looking at him, and then made a break for the forest. 

 

The sun’s rapid crawl down the sky had cooled the forest down. Underneath Dipper’s sneakers, the lush green forest bed seemed to whisper with his movements. Just as it had before, the forest canopy blocked out most of whatever sun was left, and Dipper shivered slightly. It was barely seven, and the sun wasn’t quite set yet, but it might as well have been. He had to squint to see more than a few feet ahead of him. Still, it was an improvement from the sweltering heat and deafening battle cries that lay outside the eerily silent forest.  
He walked, hands in his pockets, until he came to a barbed wire fence.  
“Huh. This must be where the camp grounds end.”  
He peered left and right, and saw that the fence seemed to go on forever. He turned and began to walk back to where he’d come from. It was only a few steps before he fell flat on his face.  
“OW! Dang it!” He propped himself up on his elbows and looked back at his shoes. Sure enough, his shoelaces were tied together. “How does this keep happening?!” He let out a frustrated sigh and rubbed at his sore nose. He reached down and unknotted his laces, and had begun to rise to his feet when something caught his eye. In the hollow of a tree a few yards from him, something was glinting. Unsteadily, Dipper stood and walked cautiously over to the tree. He knelt down, and came eye level to a small, tattered journal. A lock on the front was glinting at him.  
“What the…?” He picked up the journal, turning it over carefully. It was small journal, small enough to fit inside someone’s jacket comfortably. It was old, too; it had to be what, half a century old? Dipper rubbed away at the cover, clearing off a layer of grime and dirt. The writing on the front was nearly illegible. He could make out a vague hand print, but that was about it. He wondered if he could open it.  
As soon as his fingers touched the lock, it fell away. Old age, no doubt. When Dipper opened the journal, he was surprised to see that the writing inside was much more legible. The cover had protected the paper inside, for the most part, from destruction. The handwriting was elegant, loopy cursive, but it was still obviously written by a child. Dipper could tell because the first entry clearly stated it.  
“This summer marks my fourth year coming to this camp. It’s hard to believe that I’m going to be thirteen in a few weeks—finally, adolescence! I have one and only one mission this summer, and that mission is to find out what makes this camp so weird. Where does the weirdness come from? And why specifically this camp—my camp? In a place so separated from reality that I have multiple friends here, something is definitely special about it in ways I cannot yet comprehend. But I swear on my life that I will!”  
Dipper mumbled all of this aloud, with his brows furrowed. He could relate to this kid. But why did he think the camp was so weird? Weird how? Dipper looked around at the trees surrounding him and shuddered a little. Maybe it wasn’t just in his head that there was something sinister in these woods. It felt like he was being…watched…  
“HEY BRO-BRO!”  
Dipper screamed and dropped the journal. He spun around and came face to face with a grinning Mabel.  
“MABEL! Don’t DO that!” He knelt down and grabbed the journal, sticking it in his pocket. “Gave me a heart attack…”  
“Aw, no I didn’t. Come on, dorkus, the counselors are taking us somewhere! Why’d you wander all the way out here?”  
Dipper forced himself not to do the shifty eye thing he always did when he was nervous.  
“I dunno, I was just tired of getting hit in the face with dodge balls.”  
“What’d you put in your pocket?”  
Dipper’s eyes widened.  
“Oh, uh…it’s nothing.” His eyes shifted away. “Nothing.”  
“Wow, that was suspicious!” Mabel chirped happily. “It’s okay, I can annoy you into showing me later. C’mon, let’s go see what we’re doing!” She grabbed her brother’s hand and began to pull him back to camp as he tried to keep up with her.  
The eye-like marks in the trees almost seemed to follow them. 

 

They arrived at a part of the woods Dipper hadn’t seen yet; a small clearing in the woods, with a large circle of logs. In the center was a fire pit. Dipper smiled. Now, a campfire was more his speed. The counselors were getting bags of marshmallows out of a canvas bag, and Mabel pumped her fists in triumph.  
“Dipsticks, this evening just got a whole lot funner.”  
“Not an actual word.”  
“Not the actual point!”  
Candy and Grenda were sitting on a log, waving the twins over. Dipper and Mabel sat down on the log with them, and the girls handed them two impaled marshmallows.  
“You are just in time! The tales of horror are about to start.” Candy said happily, holding her marshmallow over the fire until it turned black.  
“Oh sweet, scary stories? I’ve got a few good ones up my sleeve…” Dipper said mischievously, rubbing his hands together. Hours in the public library reading scary stories in the kids’ section were about to pay off.  
An eruption of smoke and light in the center of the campfire silenced the campers. Through the haze of smoke, they could hear the counselors.  
“Lee, did you just throw a smoke bomb into the fire?”  
“You know it!”  
“Dude, that’s so dangerous. I love it.”  
A boy with long, blond hair stepped through the smoke and grinned at the startled children before him.  
“You guys ready to pee your pants?”  
“ALWAYS!” Came a kid’s voice from the back.  
“Electing to ignore that.” He said happily, finger-gunning in the voice’s direction. “I’m Lee, but you can call me…” He pointed to the wood chip necklace around his neck. “Wolf Tank! And I’ve been chosen to be your Scare Master for tonight!”  
“No, you begged to be scare master, dude.”  
“Shut up, Nate!”  
“Can we just get this show on the road? I’m being eaten alive by mosquitos.” A black-haired boy piped up, looking incredibly irked. He was leaning against a tree with his hood up, hands in his pockets.  
“Stan said you gotta lose the hoodie, Robbie.” Wendy called over her shoulder.  
“I told you, it’s Bloody Knuckles!”  
“No one is ever going to call you that.” She replied. “For real though, Lee, let’s get the stories started.”  
“Okay, okay, jeez.” He pulled a flashlight from his pocket, and turned it on under his face. “Who wants to go first?”  
Hands instantly flew into the air.  
“Uh…you. Little dude.” Lee was pointing at Dipper. A grin broke across Dipper’s face.  
“Okay okay…has anyone heard the Tale of the Phantom Cab?”

 

After Dipper’s tale of psychological horror and inexplicable haunted cabs in the middle of the woods, other kids began to tell scary stories. Most of them were pretty gory, nothing actually scary; Dipper’s favorite, by far, was Mabel’s tale of the murderous sentient puffy stickers. His sister definitely had an interesting imagination. After her tale wound to a close, Lee turned his flashlight back on under his face.  
“Okay, guys…it’s the Scare Master’s turn. I’m sure you’ve heard talk of the Beast with One Eye?”  
The kids looked around at each other, before turning back to Lee and shaking their heads. His eyes widened.  
“No? Well then, dudes, you’re in for a wild ride.”  
He crouched down to get eye level with the campers, and a wicked grin spread across his face. The firelight flickered demonically behind him.  
“They say…there’s something in these woods. A Beast. The Beast with One Eye. No one knows where he comes from, but they do know this: he stalks the night, looking for naïve kids to possess and steal away. It’s happened before…About fifty years ago, at this very camp, on a night much like tonight, a group of kids snuck out of their cabins and went into the woods. They went waaaay out there, to the ends of the camp grounds. They found these incantations, and decided to read them out loud. They gathered in a circle, under the full moon…” Here, he looked They didn’t know it, but they’d summoned him. The Beast with One Eye.”  
Dipper and Mabel exchanged a glance; both of them looked a little nervous.  
“He didn’t strike at first—he never does. But then, over the days, one of them started acting really weird. He wasn’t sleeping. He was saying really weird, cryptic stuff. Some say that he tried to jump off the mess hall roof.”  
Dipper shuddered a little at the mental image; the mess hall roof was a good twenty feet off the ground.  
“A couple nights, campers said they saw him wandering the grounds in the moonlight. He’d come up real close to the cabin windows and just…smile at them from the other side of the screen. Kids started getting creeped out, but no one had the guts to tell him to knock it off. After a couple weeks of this, the group of friends snuck out of their cabins again…”  
“B-Bad things happen when you sneak out of your cabins, guys!” Another counselor interjected. The other counselors instantly verbally bombarded him.  
“Boo, Thompson!”  
“Don’t be lame, Thompson!”  
“Don’t try to give this a moral, Thompson!”  
“Sorry, guys…”  
Lee rolled his eyes. “Can I finish? Anyway. They snuck out of their cabins, way, way out into the woods. The summer was coming to an end, and it was a cool night. They walked through the falling leaves, the only sound the crunching beneath their feet. No one said it, but they felt kinda scared alone with their friend; out there, in the dark, his eyes almost looked yellow…” Lee’s voice had gotten more solemn, and more sinister. He was actually a pretty good Scare Master. “They reached the end of the camp ground. They sat and began to talk about how they were all gonna have to go home the next week. The only one not talking was their friend, who was looking less and less like a kid every minute; he was beginning to look like he belonged out there, in the thick of the woods. Those poor kids…they really paid the price for going out there alone with that thing.”  
The campers looked around at each other, all looking unnerved.  
“W-What happened to them?”  
“Gone. All of them. Because there was one crucial thing they didn’t know…”  
The campers all looked at him expectantly.  
“The Beast had snuck a knife from the mess hall out there with him!”  
A few gasps went around the fire.  
“When it was all said and done, the kid just stood there, laughing like a maniac. They say he laughed so loudly, the kids all the way in their cabins could hear him. When the police showed up, what they saw was indescribable. But what really scared them was what they didn’t see; they found the weapon, but never the kid. That kid still hasn’t been found to this day.”  
The night air suddenly seemed chillier. Mabel gripped Dipper’s hand tightly, and while he winced at the strength of her grip, he was grateful for the comfort.  
“They say, on nights like these, when the moon is full and the air is quiet, you can hear the Beast’s voice, calling out. Beckoning his next victim. He’s still out there in the woods: waiting.”  
It was Dipper who gripped Mabel’s hand hard enough to hurt this time.  
“So watch out, campers…because the Beast’s next victim could be any of you…and he could strike at any time…”  
“BOO!”  
A masked man burst from the trees with a frightening yell, and every single camper shrieked in unison. It was almost pathetic how quickly they scattered. As Dipper and Mabel ran, they could hear Stan cackling behind them, as well as the counselors laughing and cheering.  
They still didn’t stop running until they reached Mabel’s cabin, letting their adrenaline get the better of them. As they stood on the steps, panting, Mabel laughed.  
“Was that a story or what?! I still liked mine about the murder stickers better, though.”  
“Oh, c’mon, you were gripping my hand hard enough to bruise it. You were totally terrified.”  
“Says you, Mr. Teeth Chatter!”  
Dipper playfully nudged his sister on the arm, and she gave his shoulder a punch in return.  
“Well, I should be getting to bed, Dipsticks. My cabin sisters are waiting for me.”  
“O-Oh, right. Well, uh, I’ll go ahead and walk. All the way across camp. In the dark. To my cabin. At the edge of the woods.”  
“Are you scared, bro-bro?”  
“Naaaaah, I’m good. I’m a brave guy! You know me!”  
Mabel raised an eyebrow at him.  
“Alright…night, Dipper.”  
“G’night, Mabel.”  
Mabel turned and walked into her cabin. Dipper could hear her cabin mates squealing as the screen door closed behind her. He took a deep breath, adjusted his cap, and began to sprint with all the energy left in him, all the way back to his cabin. No way in heck was he gonna idly walk in the dark by himself. 

 

As he crawled into his bunk, the day’s exhaustion washed over him. He closed his eyes and buried his face into the pillow.  
His entire body tensed when he heard his name in the wind.  
He shot up like a rocket, wild eyes looking out the window. There was no one there. But he swore, the wind whispering through the trees was carrying his name. He listened intently.  
“Dipper…”  
It had to just be the wind.  
“Dipper…”  
It was his overactive imagination!  
“Dipper…”  
Grunkle Stan was just playing another prank! Or maybe Mabel!  
“Dipper…”  
Dipper buried his face back into his pillow and tried his best to block it out. He could feel his heart hammering in his chest, and he tried to focus on his suddenly ragged breathing. He could feel the journal still tucked away in his pocket; he hadn’t bothered to change into his pajamas. He clutched the journal closer to his chest.  
All he had to do was just last his first night at Camp Twin Pines.  
Outside, the wind whispered on.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, there it is! The first chapter! If you want to leave a comment telling me what you think, I encourage it! If not, that's cool too! Either way, thanks for reading! Future chapters will be coming soon.


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